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Why Strava’s fitness tracking should really worry you

Strava isn’t the only one with a God’s eye view of user locations, warns researcher.

With Australia poised to introduce new data breach rules, the news that exercise tracking software Strava has unwittingly exposed secret military sites is a klaxon wake-up call. It turns out that user data reveals highly classified locations, part of what is being called the weaponisation of personal data.

And there’s a problem for regulators in this kind of revelation. Although there’s increased scrutiny for companies that accidentally let data spill into the public domain, many users of wearables or other apps assume the data they surrender is kept privately — even when it isn’t.

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